Haji had sat alone in the room and had bent his thin-hair head on the palms which had been poled on his thighs. Perhaps it was for ten minutes that he had sat immobile and hunched up in an armchair. It was an hour after his struggle with Soraya. He had said before and insisted on it for a thousand times that none of his photos must be in the house. But when he had got in the room abruptly, he had seen that she had sat on the bed hugging his picture with a black ribbon on, crying. Haji had tried to take back the picture. She had not allowed him. Her shoulders were trembling, because of crying or Haji’s shaking, or both. “Didn’t I tell for many times…?” He lifted his heavy hand and when lowered it on her face, she fell down on the bed. The slap’s noise, Soraya’s scream, and their daughter’s crying -Mahsa- in across of the room, all together howled in his ears, and spun in the belly of the house which Haji had called “the house of sorrow”. Haji glanced at Soraya and the line of blood from her nose to the left corner of her upper lip. She was sobbing. “God save me from you women,” Haji shouted.

I was born in a small town of Fars province, Fasa, 1984. But my life has not been as dark as 1984, the marvelous novel of George Orwell. Not yet, at least! There are so many stories I have written, and so many others, I have not. I always have been a story writer, but my first published book was a translation of “Ladybird”, the long story of D.H. Lawrence, into Farsi. My second published book was my first short story collection which was published by Kian Afraz Publication, 2018.